the Primrose Café, ‘is he still hanging around?’
‘As far as I know,’ Madeleine said evasively, un-willing to admit more and give Andy the chance to hold forth on the inadvisability of inviting a total stranger to lunch without a bodyguard in attendance. ‘Why?’
‘Just wondered.’ He stirred his coffee vigorously and tapped the spoon three times on the rim of the cup, a habit of his that usually denoted that he had something on his mind. ‘I checked out his vehicles. He picked up both from a rental outfit in Vancouver last week. He holds a valid California driver’s license, collared two speeding tickets in the last five years, and has no out-standing fines.’
‘So he’s harmless, just as I expected.’
Andy looked at her from under puckered brows. ‘"Harmless" isn’t a word that I’d apply to a man like him, especially not where a woman like you is concerned.’
She bristled with annoyance at that. ‘What do you mean, “a woman like me”?’
Andy stirred his coffee again. ‘Well…’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘You’re different.’
‘Different how?’
‘You’re sort of…’ Tap, tap, tap. ‘Impressionable. You’re not as…well, as hard-boiled as, say, Sadie, and that can make you an easy mark to a certain type of man.’
‘What you’re really saying, Andy,’ Madeleine cut in sharply, ‘is that because I made the mistake of marrying Martin I must be a few bales short of a full load. And I have to tell you I’m beginning to resent your attitude.’
‘Well, heck, Madeleine!’ Andy protested. ‘You’ve got to admit that Martin and this Hamilton guy do seem to be cut from the same cloth.’
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Nick Hamilton is nothing like Martin. Nothing at all.’
‘He’s a sight too smooth for my liking. Too damned full of himself. And you—’ Andy’s warm brown gaze had narrowed with suspicion ‘—you seem unusually sure of someone you hardly know. Or have I missed a chapter somewhere between now and last Friday?’
She hoped that he interpreted the flush on her cheeks as anger and not guilt. Because, she assured herself, she’d done nothing to feel guilty about. ‘You missed nothing,’ she said.
‘And it’s none of my concern anyway,’ he finished gloomily.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to. The message came through loud and clear that what you do and who you see when I’m not around is no one’s business but your own.’
‘We have no claim on each other, Andy.’
‘I know.’ He stared morosely into the dregs of his coffee. ‘Has he said how long he’s going to be hanging around?’
‘No, but then I haven’t asked him. I didn’t think it was any of my business.’
Andy sighed. ‘Will you promise me one thing? Will you at least be careful? Just because he doesn’t have a criminal record it doesn’t mean he’s harmless, no matter what you might think. I’m only asking because I care about you, Madeleine.’
His obvious concern softened the edges of her annoyance. ‘I know that, Andy, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But you have to understand that I can’t go through the rest of my life expecting that everyone I meet is a carbon copy of Martin, or that because I made one mistake I’m doomed to repeating it. Give me credit for having some brains.’
‘It’s not your brains I worry about,’ Andy said on another sigh. ‘It’s your heart If you’d give it to me, it’d be safe.’
He was right, Madeleine thought, as she drove the five miles out to Spindrift Island. The trouble was, as Sadie had so accurately observed, it wasn’t ‘safe’ that put ‘spark’ into a relationship between a man and a woman. There had to be an undercurrent of excitement, an edge of danger, of risk, to bring it alive. And, in order for it to survive, there had also to be that sense of having found a soulmate to give it balance.
Even at its best, her marriage to Martin had been lacking in whatever vital ingredient made two separate people into a couple. There had been, at least in the beginning, a semblance of passion and desire, but there had never been much meeting of the minds. Nor, as she had ultimately learned to her cost, a mutual under-standing of values or ethics.
On Sunday, however, as Nick’s visit had stretched from one hour to two, and eventually to three, she’d had a little taste of what she’d missed in matrimony. Over and above the erotic pull, she’d experienced a sense of sympathetic communion with Nick; a sense of sharing such as she’d never known with Martin.
So much insight, she thought, pulling into the driveway leading to the farmhouse, and all because a man she’d known only a few days had wonderful blue eyes and the voice of a fallen angel! A man of whom Andy passionately disapproved—but whom Peg Leg found completely and unconditionally acceptable.
Peg Leg, thank the lord, had impeccable instincts.
At six o’clock on Friday evening Nick collected the papers littering the small table in the main cabin of the RV and shoved them haphazardly into his briefcase. Scraping a hand over the day-old growth of beard on his jaw, he headed for the cramped bathroom to shower and shave.
He had a headache, the sort that aspirins couldn’t cure. The sort inflicted on a man by his conscience—something Nick Hamilton didn’t usually allow to trouble him. But the fact was that the success of Phase Two of Operation Tyler, last weekend, bothered him more than he cared to admit. And Phase Three would shortly get under way.
Within the hour Madeleine would show up on his doorstep, never suspecting that the real reason he was pursuing her so assiduously was to bring a speedy and satisfactory end to his stay in the area. Satisfactory to him, that was. Because enforced visits to small towns half buried in sand and crab-traps, and peopled with dogooders concerned with the faded grandeur of crumbling old houses, weren’t his bailiwick. There was a world of political intrigue and modern warfare being played out on the international stage, and his usual ringside seat was growing cold without him.
But he couldn’t turn his back on family. Edmund couldn’t be blamed for the fact that, at ninety-one, his health was failing and his faculties weren’t as sharp as they’d been when he was seventy. The truth was that he’d declined drastically since his first stroke five years ago and, in all honesty, had been losing his grip for nearly ten years, leaving Flora to manage his affairs by herself.
Flora. Lathering his face, Nick tried to subdue the irritation his step-grandmother always provoked in him. It wasn’t her fault she was ditsy; she’d been born that way and was pretty enough, in a fluff-headed sort of way, for people to let her get away with it. Still and all, if he now found himself in a predicament that was leaving a surprisingly bad taste in his mouth, it was Flora he had to thank for it. Allowing her to handle money without adequate supervision was the same as letting a baby loose to play with fire.
Who knew what straits the old couple would have been reduced to if Nick hadn’t found himself between assignments and decided to make one of his infrequent flying visits home? Perhaps if he’d visited more often he wouldn’t now be up to the neck in complications
